Photo Gallery
Rick Wright
The visitor center at the 2,000-year-old Pont du Gard features excellent birding just outside what is perhaps the most enticing candy store in the world.
Nearly as old, the necropolis of the Alyscamps was memorably painted by van Gogh.
Here depicted with only one ear, the artist created some of his most memorable paintings in Arles…
…inspired by the bright skies and warm colors of Provence.
The Roman theater at Arles is still used for drama and music performance.
Abandoning Rome for the safety and sybaritic pleasures of Avignon, medieval popes expanded the city’s relatively simple bishop’s palace into one of the most massive Gothic buildings ever constructed.
Lunchtime will find us beneath Avignon’s famous clocktower with its animated statues.
The medieval stonemasons and sculptors of Provence created artistic treasures to match any in Europe.
Among the Italian treasures of Avignon’s too modestly named Petit Palais is this lovely early Botticelli.
The Camargue is a paradise for wading birds. The showy Little Egret is just one of an impressive variety of herons we can expect to see.
Longest-legged of all, some 20,000 pairs of Greater Flamingos breed on a single island in the Camargue, flying out to feed in roadside ponds.
The elegant Black-headed Gull is among the most frequently observed of the area’s 10 or more species of larid.
The stony steppe of La Crau harbors France’s most important populations of such birds as Little Bustard, Stone-curlew, and Greater Short-toed Lark.
A familiar sight in the Provençal countryside, European Hoopoe has become the unofficial mascot of St-Martin’s Crau Museum.
A ruined castle looms over the perfectly preserved medieval village of Les Baux, home to Alpine Swift, European Crag Martin, and Black Redstart.
Light, flavorful, and exquisitely presented, the food of Provence is as memorable as its birds.
What more could you ask for?